Snow Skills

Learning how to skate on a snowboard, or even just walk around, is difficult. Walking with one shoe that is five feet long and turned sideways isn’t exactly intuitive. And there isn’t much in live where you can apply previous knowledge or skill to the task.

Getting over the clumsiness can be as simple as tricking your brain. Your legs and arms are linked to each other through your brain in ways I don’t really understand, but it amounts to this. People who have difficulty skating are almost always hanging their forward arm at a 90° angle and muscles tense. Observe someone having difficulty with skating, and watch their front arm.
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Tony knows snowboarding too. (Previously we discussed that Tony knows cross country skiing.) And what is it that Tony knows? He knows that his toe, knee, and nose should always be in a straight line. (If you still don’t get the riddle, say “toe knee nose” a few times fast.

In snowboarding, this best applies while skating across flats from one lift to another, or while getting on and off lifts on a snowboard. Your nose, and then your knee and toes of your front foot should follow in a straight line. When you look from your nose to your knee your toes should be directly behind the view of your knee if you are in a balanced posture.
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Tony knows cross country skiing. And what is it that Tony knows? He knows that his toe, knee, and nose should always be in a straight line. (If you still don’t get the riddle, say “toe knee nose” a few times fast.

This is a good tip for those skate skiing. During the glide look out over your nose, down to your knee. Your toes should be invisible behind your knee if you are in a balanced position.
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Snow angels are one of the “cool things” about winter that kids learn early. Turn away from a field of snow, flop backwards, and wave your legs and arms in the same manner. When you stand up, the resulting mark in the snow looks like an angel due to the sweeping of the arms and legs.

The motions that make a snow angel can help you develop strong ski turning movements in your legs. Stand on a flat surface of snow in your ski boots. Set a pole tip on the instep of one of your boots just above the second buckle. Slowly begin to twist your foot around the pole tip without letting the pole wander. Your toe and heel should both be moving a similar distance left and right while the middle of your boot (under the pole tip) stays in one spot. Your boot should be making a ‘snow angel’-like mark in the snow and every part of your leg from the hip down will be moving to create this movement. Notice that you don’t have to move any other part of your body to twist your leg in this manner.
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One of Tim’s posts on where the hands should be in riding rang especially true for me about skiing. It’s disappointing how complicated and confusing some instructors can make this issue through a wide array of well-intentioned tips that have little positive effect on your skiing. One common useless tip is the thought that you should “hold your hands like you’re carrying a tray of hot chocolate down the hill.” No professional waiter on the planet could successfully carry a tray down uneven, pitched terrain with both hands grasped in lock-step in front of them. The arms have to move freely and independently to constantly fine-tune your balance while moving down a slope.

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A simple focus to improve edging in downhill skiing is to develop an awareness of the relationship of your foot to the angle of the ski. As the skis tip onto edge, your foot bends at the ankle in a sidewards motion to build your balance on the side of your foot. The big and little toes are the most obvious body part along the foot, so focus on edging by honing your ability to balance on those sides of the feet. For parallel turns, one foot balances on the little toe side of the foot and the other balances on the big toe. For wedge turns, both feet balance on the big toe side of the foot. This is a great example of big benefits from little moves: edging takes little more effort than balancing on the sides of your feet!

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